California gets $79 billion a year from the federal government - nearly 40 percent of what it spends. The money goes to everything from highways to universities. So when the federal government sneezes, California catches a cold.
Washington's frantic debt-ceiling negotiations are about to let loose a $1 trillion-plus sneeze.
The cuts headed California's way are unknown as yet, because no deal has been reached in Washington to increase the debt ceiling and prevent the Treasury from running out of cash to pay its bills Tuesday.
But it is obvious from the cuts revealed so far in Democratic and Republican plans that "there are going to be a lot of them," said state Treasurer Bill Lockyer.
"If we reduce the deficit at the federal level, it's going to increase deficits at the state level," said Vin Weber, a former Republican member of Congress and GOP consultant. "That's not the objective of people, but it's going to happen, and they all know it."Related:This is what the budget battle is really all about.

Fontana (Calif.) Herald News scSan Bernardino County contractors now required to use E-VerifySan Bernardino County has implemented a policy to require all contractors that provide services or products to the county to use the federal government's E-Verify system to ensure that their employees are legally authorized to work in the United States. -- At the request of County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, the county began using E-Verify for new hires in May of 2010...

Arizona Daily Star -- Tucson Border security contract signedBorder fences, roads and lighting are not only expensive to build, they are costly to repair and maintain. -- U.S. Customs and Border Protection has signed a $24.4 million contract with a private firm to repair and maintain border barriers, roads, lighting and electrical systems along Arizona's border with Mexico, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' office said last week...

Tony Cartalucci -- Infowars -- Austin, Texas Globalist imperial networkThe mechanics of world empire, in particular the current corporate-financier oligarchy has been examined in great detail. The US State Department, supporting NGOs funded directly by both US taxpayers' money as well as funds from the Fortune 500 corporations they serve, alone constitute a global spanning, incessantly meddling homogeneous network working to undermine both personal and national sovereignty...

Associated Press What led to 'Project Gunwalker'?Phoenix -- Ten days before Christmas, ATF agent John Dodson awoke, got his morning coffee, switched on the TV news  and heard the words he had dreaded every day of every month he had been a member of the gun-trafficking investigative team called the Group VII Strike Force. -- A Border Patrol agent had been shot dead in a gun battle with suspected bandits...

Los Angeles Time E-mails to White House didn't mention gun stingThe ATF's field supervisor on the Southwest border sent a series of e-mails last year to a top White House national security official detailing the agency's ambitious efforts to stop weapons trafficking into Mexico, but did not mention that a botched sting operation had allowed hundreds of guns to flow to drug cartels...

Arizona Republic -- Phoenix scBattle lines form in Pearce recallThe battle for Mesa's District 18 Senate seat is not likely to be a low-key affair. -- On the one hand, Senate President Russell Pearce lists a former U.S. treasurer and one of the nation's most famous foes of illegal immigration among his allies, who also include some Arizona politicians...

Associated Press Reza, other agitators on trial in Phoenix salvador RezaThe president of a national religious organization and five others went on trial Friday in Phoenix a year after they were arrested while protesting Arizona’s tough immigration law and a crackdown on illegal [aliens]. -- The Rev. Peter Morales with the Boston-based Unitarian Universalist Association is charged with a misdemeanor count of failure to obey an order... [See Reza Watch]

Jim Kouri, CPP -- The Examiner Top military brass slam Obama, Reid proposed budget cutsAccording General Martin Dempsey, President Obama's nominee to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it would be "extraordinarily difficult and very high risk" to cut $800 billion from defense spending as is proposed by President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as part of efforts to reduce the national debt...

Orangeburg (SC) Times and Democrat Mexican illegal alien admits immigration violationAbdi Reynosa-Bravo, 26, of Mexico and Orangeburg, pleaded guilty in federal court to being an alien who knowingly and illegally entered the United States and eluded examination and inspection by immigration officers, according to U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles. -- U.S. District Judge Margaret B. Seymour of Columbia accepted the plea and will impose sentence after she has reviewed the presentence report...

Arizona Republic -- Phoenix Gov. Jan Brewer's border security countersuit stumblingA federal countersuit filed by Gov. Jan Brewer alleging that the federal government is failing to secure the border from an 'invasion' appears to be on shaky ground. -- The suit, which was filed in connection with the federal suit over Senate Bill 1070, got its first day in court Thursday as attorneys for the state defended it from a U.S. Department of Justice motion to dismiss...

Sacramento Bee Improving Mexican economy draws illegals home from CaliforniaThere are fewer [illegal aliens] in California  and the Sacramento region  because many are now finding the American dream south of the border. -- "It's now easier to buy homes on credit, find a job and access higher education in Mexico," Sacramento's Mexican consul general, Carlos González Gutiérrez, said Wednesday. "We have become a middle-class country."

Allan Wall -- VDare.com Operation Wetback II: A few practical proposalsIn the fiscal year ending September 2010, the Obama Administration deported nearly 393,000 illegal aliens, as Suzanne Gamboa reported breathlessly in her article Traffic Crime, Drunken Driving Deportations Way Up. -- The whistleblower Federale was less impressed than Gamboa, pointing out that it was only 3,000 more than the previous year...

Paul Craig Roberts -- My Catbird Seat Disastrous outcomes from an orchestrated crisisWith the world concerned about US financial credibility and the poor outlook for the US economy, now is not the time for the Republicans to grandstand on the public debt. The debt ceiling needed to be quietly raised. Instead, the Republicans started a fire and then threw gasoline on it, creating an inferno that could burn up the US social safety net or the US Treasury's credit rating...

Brandon Smith -- Zero Hedge The essential rules of tyrannyAs we look back on the horrors of the dictatorships and autocracies of the past, one particular question consistently arises; how was it possible for the common men of these eras to NOT notice what was happening around them? How could they have stood as statues unaware or uncaring as their cultures were overrun by fascism, communism, collectivism, and elitism?